Reflecting on 45 years of working for the University of Michigan Health System and MHealthy, Pene Chevalier shares a remarkable and deeply personal story about growing up at U-M. She describes how she and her sisters came to work at the university, the joy of gifts of jam and flowers from families of grateful pediatric patients, the simple pleasure of being able to walk to work from her home in Ann Arbor, the tragic deaths of sick children, the demolition of one hospital and the building of another, the friendship of coworkers, and the trauma of workplace violence. Throughout it all, she has retained an indomitable spirit, a tremendous loyalty to the university, and a personal grace and resilience that make her inspirational and thoughtful story a treasure. Below is Pene's story, her account of her time here, in her own words.

Growing Up at U-M

I grew up on a farm near Alpena, Michigan. The front yard was a swamp with a creek and a long driveway leading to a farmhouse on a hill. The swamp was filled with frogs and an occasional turtle would build its nest in the sandy driveway. The creek would flood the swamp in the winter and everyone in the neighborhood would come to ice skate. I was born during the spring flood of 1947. The swamp was so flooded they had to reach the house by going through the backfields.

My two sisters and I were little kids walking to one-room grade schools down gravel country roads. The community was divided between French Catholics on my father's side and German Lutherans on my mother's side. On the playground, the competitions were always between the Catholics versus the Lutherans. We were a mix and thought we should be able to play both sides.

When I was five, my father was killed in a tragic accident along with three of my mother's brothers. After that, my mother would always work to support us. At that time, most mothers who had worked during the war years were back at home raising their children. My mother was one of those women who had to do it all.

My high school years were during the height of the cold war and the Cuban missile crisis. In my junior year, President Kennedy was assassinated. Every magazine and "how to" book was about building bomb shelters. There were also bomb scares during this time at the high school. Sirens would blare and 400 students would march single-file down city streets to nearby church basements. We would stand huddled together in these dark basements and wait for the all clear.

My mother sent the three of us off to college at a time when girls could only become nurses or teachers. My oldest sister, Pamela, went to Henry Ford Nursing School in Detroit. My youngest sister and I went to Central Michigan University. We all had scholarships and worked as many small jobs as possible to try to help my mother.

The Move to Ann Arbor

There were four of us who came to U-M. My sister Pamela started as a pediatric inpatient nurse in 1966, fresh out of nursing school and a newlywed living in Ypsilanti. Sister Peggyann came in 1967 during a summer break from college. My brother-in-law took her to Academic Appointments, where she was hired as a file clerk and worked there a couple of years. I came in the summer of 1968. My brother-in-law took me to U-M hospital, on a Friday, to apply for a summer job. They told me to come back on Monday in white shoes and a white uniform and start work as a patient escort in the Pediatric Outpatient Clinic. I was 21 years old.

My mother Elsie came in 1974: her three daughters were in Ann Arbor and her grandson had just been born at U-M. She lived in Alpena and wanted to be closer. We decided she needed to practice interviewing if she was going to move here so she interviewed for a job at the hospital gift shop. Much to our surprise, she was hired on the spot. She quit her job up north and left the community and friends she had known all her life, and we moved her to Ann Arbor. She was manager of the gift shop until she retired.

Early Years at U-M

My early jobs were mostly in the Outpatient Building. It had no air conditioning, vinyl-covered green walls, and a tube system to send the patient charts between the clinics, medical records, and the main hospital.

My first job in the Pediatric Clinic was on the first floor. It was a happy place to work despite the children being sick. We looked forward to seeing the children who would come with their families for return visits; and they would be excited to see us. Working together, my nurse sister (Pam) and I kept track of the children between their outpatient pediatric visits and inpatient stays.

One Mom told me her little girl was sure I was Superwoman, because of my long legs and dark hair.

In between the busy times, I would perch on a stool near the front desk and read the reference books on children's health.

The excitement in the clinic was subdued only when a dreaded bone marrow extraction had to be done in the soundproof inner room. U-M hospital saw the typical sick children but also saw the most unusual cases. One doctor said they saw at least one case a week that no one had ever seen before.

In my first year in Pediatrics, I almost died from catching their flu bugs and cold viruses.

One day two twins were brought in by ambulance. They were dehydrated because of the flu. One was already dead when they placed him on the examination table. That was about the saddest event that occurred while I worked in Pediatrics.

Central Appointments

Another of my early jobs was in Central Appointments. Seven of us were in an office on the second level of the outpatient building. We pushed three-foot-square carts on wheels that held daily appointment cards for every doctor seeing patients in the clinics. Patients would call us to make appointments. They also came to see us when they were in the clinics. They would line up at our window to make their return visits, and we would call to schedule their tests and procedures and give them preparation instructions. Another worker and I worked the front desk and each thought the patients liked us best. They would bring us flowers from their gardens and homemade jam, and it was fun to see them and do whatever we could to help them. Our office was above the emergency entrance and the ambulances came with their sirens blaring. We tried not to look for fear of imagining it was someone we knew.

I was in this office when a fellow worker killed a psychiatry administrator. The police cars swarmed to the entrance below us, and I can still see the police running up the grassy slope toward the psychiatric inpatient building.

Nursing Administration and Technology Transformation

For many years I worked in Nursing Outpatient Administration.

During this period, I saw six directors of nursing come and go.

It was hard work, but I learned about budgets, statements and activity reports, human resource and payroll systems, orientation of staff, nursing policies, and a whole lot more.

I finished my BBA degree by taking night classes at EMU, and it came in handy. One administrator asked me to tell her everything about accounting so she could understand hospital statements and activity reports. I brought in my basic accounting book and we went through it chapter by chapter.

It was while I was working at this job that we began the change from typewriters to word processors to Macintosh computers and then to IBM computers. The early systems didn't talk to each other so there was a lot of transferring work whenever there was a change.

The first microwave oven I ever used was also at this time-it was in a small break room at the new Mott Children's Hospital. I put an apple inside and pressed the button, and my apple came out cooked.

A New Hospital

Outpatient hospital and nursing administration were located together in a first floor office suite that had one wall-size window facing north toward the site of what soon became the new University of Michigan hospital. This suite had no air conditioning and no windows to open, and the temperature on one hot day went to 109 degrees. But it was a front row seat to watch the new hospital being built. We watched North Outpatient Building (where I had my first interview in Employment) being torn down. I saw the iron skeleton of the new hospital take shape and every level was lit with strings of light bulbs all the way to the top.

To me it seemed that it was built quite quickly.

When the new hospital was mostly completed, staff could go on tours of the new space and see the robots in the basement, the giant basin for heating and cooling, and the secret command room for operating all the systems. When the hospital was ready to open, we moved during our assigned week to a suite in the Taubman Center. Space was at a premium, so I sat in my new cubicle with my back to the wall facing a computer on the right with two feet of desk space on my left. One of the nurse managers involved in the move wore the same white shirt every day that week; she said she didn't have time to change, but it was okay because she "didn't sweat." After everyone and everything had been moved from the outpatient building and the main hospital, they began tearing down "Old Main." We would drive over on the weekends to watch the progress.

It was sad to see the once mighty old hospital building being destroyed.

Good Times

But it was a fun time, too.

Most of the office workers in the new hospital now had a desktop computer. We took classes to learn the basics and then taught the managers and other staff. It was called "Train the Trainer." Thousands of people were trained this way.

Taubman Center had live plants growing at every level, overlooking the first floor lobby and entrance. After a year or so, they gave up caring for them-it was impossible to keep them dusted, watered, and bug free. Artificial plants replaced the live plants, and I remember the poor live ones being up for sale to employees for $5 each – much to my surprise they went like hotcakes.

And Bad

But there were some terrible times, too.

I was working in Taubman when an angry patient killed a 42-year-old doctor. "Critical incident report policies" and "yellow cards" were quickly put into place by the hospital. When someone became violent, the yellow cards secretly alerted another staff to call security.

Working at the Hospital

In the years that I worked at the hospital, I had a lot of fun.

I lived on the Old West Side and walked to work most mornings. Sometimes I walked home at night but that was harder because it was uphill. My sister Pam, who went into work at 7 pm for her 12-hour night shift, would park at my house and walk to work, a 35- to 40-minute walk. We took the bus back, or I would pick her up.

During the summer, our administrative group and my hospital friends would sometimes meet at German Park. For one hospital celebration, the staff built the longest subway sandwich I have ever seen. We all wore commemorative blue t-shirts and hairnets. I do remember slicing and eating this huge sandwich.

Employee appreciation days were always fun, with dunk tanks and employees lining up on "Cardiac Hill" for hotdogs and ice cream. During summer, staff also loaded onto buses lined up on the street below Cardiac Hill and went to Tiger Stadium to watch the Tigers play.

I had friends from many different departments, and we'd often get together for lunch in the cafeteria. When I first started in pediatrics, it took me a few months to find the cafeteria. The old hospital was a cavernous building that seemed to be many times more massive than the new hospital. The cafeteria was usually packed with staff and patients. The medical staff were segregated in their little roped off area. The cafeteria served the best chili, and on Fridays, you could celebrate with the most delicious macaroni and cheese or broccoli cheese casserole or fantastic collard greens that would propel me to new heights of energy, just in time for the weekend.

The parking wars were epic at the hospital. Each year, staff bought a parking sticker; but, they called it a "license to hunt." Once you found a spot in the early morning, you never left. At lunch time, I would escape by catching buses to local shopping malls; or by walking to many nearby places.

To celebrate the building of the new hospital, the cafeteria baked and decorated a massive cake replica. The cake was at least 4 feet high by 8 feet wide and sat in the middle of the cafeteria.

I worked with and knew an astonishing number of people at the hospital. Whenever I walked in the hallways, nearly everyone would smile and say hello, although I often didn't know their names. I worked with an almost equal number of people over the phone, not knowing them in person. It was always fun to finally meet a person and connect them to the voice on the phone.

Leaving the Hospital Behind

When I moved off site, it felt like I had retired. From seeing and knowing hundreds of people every day at the hospital, the number shrank to a small group of about 40 staff.

I now work at MHealthy, a program focused on keeping employees healthy and productive and supporting them in their healthy choices. It is one of the greatest places to work.

Although I can no longer walk to work, I walk 30 minutes every morning in spring, summer, and fall in my neighborhood, and during winter can walk at Briarwood Mall or can sign up for MHealthy classes such as yoga and urban line dancing. I also participate in the Active-U program, which makes it a game to exercise and stay active. The MHealthy Rewards program rewards faculty and staff with money for completing an annual health questionnaire and screening.

I work with staff who are dedicated to being healthy and to helping others be healthy, and I have the greatest boss who is dedicated to having one of the best health promotion programs available anywhere.

Throughout my many years at the university, I've been so lucky to do what I most like to do, and to have been able to work with wonderful people. Working with so many different people and in different places has made for a colorful and interesting work life. After 45 years at U-M, every day is still fun-and I'm still learning new things.